


To Fly

by dragonofdispair



Series: Kite Strings [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: 50 Sentences, Canon What Canon?, Fairytale Physics, Gen, Knights - Freeform, fairytale AU, kites
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 14:51:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6157156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a fairytale Cybertron, before he's known for rescuing princes and saving cities, Jazz grows up in a war-ravaged Iacon. 59 sentences about a young Jazz who taught himself to fly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Fly

**Author's Note:**

> I was planning on waiting to post these until the main story was finished, but then I went and did a Toy Story that mentioned Jazz and his kites in my stories, confusing at least one reviewer because I hadn't posted the story about kites yet. So here's a sneak peek.
> 
> These were written for the writing group's Declarative Sentence challenge, and I used it mostly as a way of fleshing out this version of Jazz before I started writing the main story _Kite Strings and Dragon Wings_. Several of the sentences became microfics of their own, but that was okay.

Jazz…

  1. is black and white with red biolights.
  2. has a blue visor instead of standard optics. This is not a flaw or because the optics are missing; his visor is a single optical band.
  3. is a fairly small mech, though he's the tallest of his creche-mates. All of them were built small like most recent Iaconi. After generations of intermittent Decepticon invasions, there just isn't the resources for building an entire creche-full of large mechs and Iaconi have always preferred having many younglings running around over just one or two larger ones. (Optimus and Magnus were members of the last creche of large Iaconi mechs built.)
  4. is graceful. He rarely missteps or stumbles in any way.
  5. likes techno music. His current favorite is a techno remix of the Hymn to Primus.
  6. thinks music is to dance or fly too, and enjoys it a lot. But he leaves the making of music to others, though there are very few in Iacon who can make new music anymore.
  7. likes kites.
  8. _really_ likes kites.
  9. has been building and flying kites ever since his first, just a few orns after he was activated.
  10. built his first kite with the rest of his creche. Wheeljack showed them how to make them from tinfoil and plastic rods. It wasn’t very good at flying, but he fell in love with how he could run and make the thing fly.
  11. still hast that first kite. It didn’t really fly, just barely managed to hang in the air when he ran, but it’s special to him and so he keeps it.
  12. still has all his kites… the ones that weren't destroyed when they crashed anyway.
  13. has built hundreds of kites over the vorn. The smallest is barely bigger than two of his fingers and can be flown on barely a puff of breeze. The largest is his battle kite and is large enough to support his weight for short times as long as it has sufficient wind under the sails.
  14. made the battle kite with the help of Wheeljack, weapon forger of the Paladins of Primus.
  15. is Wheeljack’s favorite. He was always hanging out in the workshop. Granted he was trying to build kites, but he’s a youngling. Wheeljack knows better to expect him to be interested in anything but his favorite toys and building kites actually required quite a bit of engineering. So maybe Jazz never “grew out” of his kite phase… that didn’t make Wheekjack any less fond of the kid.
  16. and his creche (Bumblebee, Cliffjumper, Windcharger, and Seaspray) are the youngest bots in Iacon, built only a vorn before the Decepticons attempted a renewed invasion. When they started working as runners — running messages, and delivering energon and ammunition to the fighters — they were taught to use simple tasers.
  17. is the only one of his creche to be a squire, which means he can be a runner at night and use a scattershot blaster. (Tasers don’t work on terrorcons).
  18. finds it stressful to be the only night-runner sometimes. There’s a lot of ground to cover and not much time to do it in, but with the battle kite he’s up above the majority of the night fighting (terrorcons don’t look up or try and climb after him like Decepticons did when he was a day runner).
  19. never makes a kite that isn’t brightly colored.
  20. is the squire of Optimus Prime, Champion of Primus and ruler of Iacon.
  21. became Prime’s squire by chance, when he hit a Decepticon over the head with an early version of his battle kite as it (and he) fell out of the sky due to a misstep. The Decepticon had been poised to kill the Prime and was _very_ _distracted_ by being smacked with a giant kite. Panicked, and stunned, he tased the 'Con. Repeatedly. Optimus made Jazz his squire as a reward.
  22. doesn’t actually want to be a paladin of Primus, but is very dedicated to the defense of Iacon which is his home. Becoming a squire meant he got trained in using scattershot blasters and other weapons, instead of just the tasers that other young bots use.
  23. once built a kite shaped like a dragon that was so realistic, the paladins thought that a real dragon was coming to attack Iacon.
  24. later used the dragon kite to scare off a Decepticon raiding party. That only worked a few times before the Decepticons wised up though, and Terrorcons don’t even notice.
  25. was very sorry to finally be forced to put the dragon kite away for good.
  26. has built several of the very tiny kites.
  27. thinks they’re enchanting. They’re small enough that they can be flown really close to a mech — only an arm’s length a way — and stay aloft on only the faint breeze of a mech’s fans. He doesn’t even need to work his fans any harder than normal to keep them up. And because they’re so tiny and so close, he can see how every tiny shift in the breeze makes the kite move.
  28. used to spend hours just watching the little kites.
  29. made box kites from graphite and nylon. They weren’t very maneuverable. They didn’t do twists in the air. But they flew, bright spots of color that never failed to make other mechs look up and smile.
  30. tried using the box kites and little cameras to spy on Decepticon camps. Unfortunately they caught the attention of the barbarians as easily as they did his fellow Iaconi.
  31. ... his favorites were always the stunt kites. Which is why the battle kite is based of them.
  32. now uses his battle kite to flit around the city and over rooftops, delivering messages, energon and ammunition to the Paladins fighting Terrorcons each night.
  33. sometimes uses his vantage point to maim Terrorcons with his scattershot blaster, even though he’s supposed to stay out of the direct fighting.
  34. doesn’t know why he first thought of riding on his kites, but thinks it’s a grand idea. Who, who’s ever flown a kite, hasn’t wished they could fly with it. Jazz just… tried it. And didn’t give up on trying it, even when it didn’t work the first few times…
  35. is definitely _not_ afraid of heights.
  36. wants to go back to flying kites for fun.
  37. does think the battle kite is awesome fun.
  38. just thinks that he’d like to fly other sorts of kites — the ones that are _just_ for fun — too.
  39. knows everything there is to know — intellectually — about flight… so as to make better kites.
  40. hasn’t told anyone, but he dreams sometimes of dragon wings.
  41. wonders what it’s like on the moon, where the dragons live. There are tales so old they’re myths, about famous knights that have gone to the moon to slay dragons, but when Jazz hears them he wants to know more about the color of moon rocks and moving in lower-gravity than the gory details of killing a creature who can fly.
  42. has a light weight racing alt-form, which he doesn’t use nearly as much as he should.
  43. think’s driving’s fun and all, but it has nothing on flying with a kite.
  44. is definitely a daredevil who doesn’t use any sorts of safety gear, which does get him in trouble on the few occasions where he does misstep and falls out of the sky. Fortunately he’s also very good with his grappling hook and catches himself before he hits the ground.
  45. _has_ hit the ground a few times. Yes it really, really hurt.
  46. never stays down for long though.
  47. has never been out of Iacon.
  48. remembers listening to the stories the older knights sometimes told about other places, before Iacon’s troubles became so dire that none of the knight left any more.
  49. thinks Wheeljack tells the best stories. Wheeljack, it seems to him, has been everywhere, from the sonic canyons to the rust sea and even… and this is how Jazz know’s that Wheeljack is a lying liar who lies… to Kaon.
  50. it doesn’t stop him from listening.
  51. dreams of the sonic canyons and the winds that howl through the spires and crevasses. Music and kites… a perfect place to dance.
  52. dreams of the rust sea, with all that flat open space. No buildings to make the wind unpredictable. Just open sky… a perfect place to dance.
  53. doesn’t tell anyone about those dreams either.
  54. uses the kite to dance through the towers and rooftops of Iacon.
  55. knows all sorts of spins and tricks. The older mechs sometimes tell him to be careful, a war zone is no place for inventing new, dangerous stunts, but he always replies “What’s the use of a kite if you can’t fly?”
  56. once he stole a map of… someplace he doesn’t even know. It wasn’t Iacon and the streets were strange, neither the perfect grid of Iacon’s long-gone past nor the twisted death trap streets of it’s war-torn present. They were strange and alien and trying to follow them — just on the map! — was exciting and frightening.
  57. knows the twisty streets of Iacon like he knows his battle kite. Every twist, turn, dead end and trap. And especially those places where he can quickly get back up onto the roofs if he finds himself on the ground.
  58. once was caught on the roofs while the Decepticons set fire to the buildings around him. Nearly an eighth of the city burned that day. He dodged flames and danced through smoke trying to escape without catching his kite on fire. Much of the string did burn and he had to hold onto the frame directly. Nearly all his paint blistered and he was grounded by the medics for a decaorn to deal with smoke and heat damage, but maneuvering through the unpredictable air currents of the fire was simultaneously the most frightening and exhilarating experience of his life to date.
  59. sometimes wishes that he _could_ leave Iacon, that it weren’t in danger from being overrun by Decepticons and their undead armies so that he could take some time to explore. Visit the sonic canyons and the Rust Sea and those strange alien streets he’s seen only on stolen maps...



 


End file.
